Thursday, June 21, 2018

“Do you think a beer does anything
to tempt a guy?” Jasmine is wistful,
looking at the next table over.Mindy,
Jasmine’s tennis partner, sitting next to her, looks over to the small round
table with three twenty-something racquetball players drinking beer, and
teases, “Sure!It begs, ‘Drink me,
please!’”Jasmine rebukes herself for
asking such a curious question.She’s
been so careful, especially at church, and, even more especially, at
Glendale.Until now.What if they figure out what she’s referring
to?Or, worse, whom?Their laughter, thankfully, suggests they
haven’t.

“’Drink me now!’” Mindy continues, “It cries
out from the bottom shelf in the refrigerator!”“Next to the orange juice!”
Gabbi pipes in.“That’s exactly it!”
Kristina exclaims, “I even ask my boyfriend, ‘why isn’t the orange juice
begging you to drink it?’ ‘Nah,’ he says, ‘Only the beer can talk to me!’”As her three friends break into peals of
laughter, Jasmine sighs relief they don’t appear to be on to her.“And nothing’s ever their fault!” Gabbi
continues.“No, of course not,” says
Kristina.“Can I tell you my latest with
my boyfriend?” Please.Jasmine hopes her
face won’t show her urgency to change the subject. As Kristina begins to share a story about her cat
and her boyfriend, the waitress arrives with their pop, ready to take their
lunch orders. Whew!That was close.

Gabbi
and Kristina are Jasmine and Mindy’s favorite opponents.The foursome can usually be found at The
Alley, Glendale Racquet Club’s sports bar, for brunch on Saturday, after a close
match of tennis.All four joined Glendale
the same year, quickly discovered they make an ideal competitive match, and
became fast friends.None of Jasmine’s tennis
friends attends Quail Canyon Community Church, nor for that matter, does anyone
that she or her mixed doubles partner Davie know of.They had both agreed to be on the look-out at
Glendale, and at church, for anyone who might frequent both places.Amazingly, as far as they knew, they were the
only two who were members of both Glendale and Quail Canyon.Jasmine prays this is still the case, or
she’ll surely be found out -- especially with mistakes like that.She wonders if it’s okay to make such a
prayer.

Mindy
attends a Methodist church; Gabbi calls herself a “typical Catholic,” meaning
she never goes to Mass; and Kristina keeps her distance from all things
church.Reflecting on Kristina’s anti-church views,
Jasmine is almost tempted to make another “mistake.”Early in their friendship, when Jasmine first
mentioned her attendance at Quail Canyon, Kristina replied, “I like Jesus.But I don’t like church.”She discounted her need to attend with a
cliché phrase Jasmine had heard before: “My relationship with Jesus is a
personal thing.”Whenever Jasmine hears
people say that, she rolls her eyes, thinks it’s a cop-out, and isn’t
about to trust their “relationship with Jesus” could be too “personal.”

But
Kristina’s story is complicated.She had
probably caught Jasmine rolling her eyes, so she took the chance to share her
story. Kristina was raised in what she
calls “an ultra fundamentalist church,” strict home, and was homeschooled
through elementary school.She’d have
been homeschooled all the way, just like her two older siblings, had she not
“taken the matter into her own hands.”For middle school, she had made up her mind: either she would refuse to
do any of the homeschool work her mother assigned to her, or she would attend a
regular school and work hard for good grades.To her parents’ credit, they agreed to the latter and enrolled her in a
private Christian school.Kristina would
have preferred the local public school, but the compromise was fair, and she
more than kept her end of the deal, graduating Salutatorian from The Springs
Christian High. As proud as she was of
her academic achievement, Kristina says she’s more proud of her real challenge:
pretending all through school that she gave her whole heart to Jesus Christ,
her Lord and Savior. “If church makes me ‘love him with my whole heart,’ he
won’t get my whole heart.”At that,
Kristina looked up to the sky and said, “Sorry, Jesus!Hope you understand!”Jasmine smiled, “I bet He does.”“Thanks,” said Kristina, “Too bad my
parents don’t.”

Jasmine
knew Kristina would understand her story too.Maybe too much.Wishing not to
get scarred by Kristina’s cynicism, she resisted her temptation to spill the
beans.She pondered whether she could
still “love Jesus with her whole heart” and not go to church.She had been willing to trust the possibility
for Kristina, but for no one else, least of all herself.Now she was seeing it in a new way.Could it be possible for her too?Could she hold a strong bond with Jesus away
from church?

Jasmine
found herself surprisingly pleased that she was about to find out.Even her husband Tim had taken the news
admirably.Sure, he was dismayed, and
she was working to regain his trust, but Jasmine was grateful he was secure
enough within himself he wasn’t letting her indiscretion ruin their marriage.Nor was he even upset with Davie.He admitted he was a little flattered the
youth pastor had taken a liking to his wife.When she reported to him the order of
her exit, he replied, “Isn’t this between us?You, me, David, and his wife Pam?Why does the church have to get into it?”

“Because
David’s on their staff.”

“OK,
so they can check in, but they don’t have to kick you out, do they?”

“I
don’t think so.”

“Her I’m the one who should be mad, and they’re
the ones over-reacting.I didn’t know
our church was run by such jerks!”

Jasmine
was startled.She had never heard her
husband talk like that about anyone, least of all church leaders.He had always respected them, and now he was
red in the face and calling them names.She had been sweating over what his reaction to her news would be, and
she had imagined anger like that, but directed at her, not them.Now she was silently smirking that he was
instead enraged at the church.Could the
church’s harsh treatment have helped to deflect her husband’s anger against
her?If the eviction had been a favor, a
chance to find out first hand if she could “love Jesus without going to
church,” and even a deflection of her husband’s anger, then why was she still
so bothered by it?

It
really wasn’t the blackball that mattered.It was the implication gushing out of the elder’s words, tone, body
language, and aura.It was his “prayer”
that wasn’t in any way a real one.That
prayer disturbed Jasmine so much she replayed it like one of those unshakable radio
jingles, and she had the interaction and the prayer fully memorized.

“Don’t
return to this church or contact Pastor David ever again,” commanded John
Prager, the head elder.Jasmine could
almost hear his thoughts: How does this
happen and why am I stuck with the job of dealing with it?She was tempted to reply: Because you signed up to be an elder?And accountability is what elders are called
to do?Instead, Jasmine took the
safe road: “I came here to ask for accountability.I thought I would be receiving prayer.”The elder smiled, “Don’t worry.We’ll keep you accountable.You did the right thing by coming to us.Just stay away from church, make no contact
with David, and you’ll be just fine.”

Then,
to placate her, he put his hands on her and prayed.But in place of a prayer of thanksgiving for
taking a wise course to move forward in truth, love, and purity, it was quite a
different sort of prayer.“Our Father in
Heaven, thank You for bringing this young lady to us.We pray You will forgive her.In the Name of Your Son, help her to flee
youthful lusts.Cleanse her heart,
purify her mind, and transform her by the renewing of her mind.Thank You for your great mercy upon this
repentant sinner, Lord.Amen.”

Mr.
Prager – she had always known him as “John,” but Mr. Prager seemed more
appropriate now – shook his head, sighed, shook his head again, and muttered,
“Women.Always the thorn. Always the tempters.I'm sure that was St. Paul’s thorn – women.”Why was he assuming
she had tempted him?Does a beer do
anything to tempt a guy?If a guy’s
tempted to drink, do they call up the beer can, look sternly in judgment at
that can, and tell that beer can where it can no longer go?

Why hadn't she had the courage to ask that question of
the church elder? No, like a wimp, she
stood there silent.The elder then
looked at her and spoke the last words she had heard spoken by anyone at Quail
Canyon:“You’re just like Eve.”